Newsroom

BLOG

People Should Never Take Life for Granted

byYolanda Kinlock

Life is something that is very precious, because longevity is not granted to everyone. The only thing in life that is promised to us is death. It is reasonable to say that most people tend to believe that tomorrow is a promised day, but in reality it really isn’t true. We all experience different phases in life such as pain, sorrow, joy, passion, and prosperity. But these phases in our lives changes as our situations change.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine before she passed away. I would like to add that our conversations were usually about life as a whole. Although, Mimi spoke of her previous beau on various occasions somehow our last conversation was different. For some reason our finally discussion stood out to me.

I recall the day Mimi unloaded her true feelings about John to me as if it were yesterday. She expressed to me that she never truly got over John. We conversed about their trials and tribulations in their past relationship. Mimi mentioned that she believed things would be different now that they were older. I encouraged her to reach out to John and tell him directly how she felt about him.

Mimi wasted so much time complaining to me and reminiscing about her past with John. However, there is a part of me that wished she would have fulfilled her desire to rekindle their relationship. Based on the conversations I had with Mimi in the past, it is clear to me that she worried about the possibility of John repulsing her that it became more of a psychological issue (mind take over matter). Mimi convinced herself that she could not take the chance because of the fear of rejection.

Unfortunately, one day Mimi was found dead in her home. She died alone, and John never knew how deep her emotions for him were.

There is no question that life is short and no one can predict when or how their life will end. However, I believe that sometimes people have to put their pride aside and not let their heart suffer.

Sometimes I think about how most of us as human beings tend to worry too much about the petty things in life, that we do not take the time to thank God for the things that we do have such as our health, a roof over our heads, and food on the table. Believe me I am speaking from experience because I am guilty of it myself.

I lost another friend who was very dear to me. Matt was the kind of man that you could count on as a friend and confidant. He would listen to everyone’s problems and advised them to look at things from a positive perspective. His philosophy was; do not worry about the things that you cannot change just try to focus on the things that you can change.

Whenever I think of Matt tears come to my eyes. So I try to focus on other things. I bear the pain of not being a good friend to Matt in his last days. I was more concerned about my own problems that I did not return a text that I received from him almost a year before his death.

Our relationship was strong, strange, and supportive for the most part of our friendship. Sometimes I would text Matt and he would not return my texts for several months.

I remember one day; I texted Matt to wish him a Happy New Year. He did not text me back until six months later to ask me how I was doing. I felt a bit slighted at the time and I did not return his text. I had so much going on in my life and I kept saying to myself that I am going to text him back. But for some reason I kept putting it off. Until this day there is a part of me that wonders if I didn’t return his text because he took so long to respond to me.

In May of 2015, while I was studying for my finals I received an email from a mutual friend informing me that Matt passed away. Tears immediately ran down my eyes, I could not control my emotions. I found out that Matt was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It broke my heart. Matt was a physically strong man, he ate healthy, exercised excessively, and tried to stay positive about life. Inopportunely, Matt was also a man that suffered in silence. No one knew his pain, but he always listen to our pain.

I frequently question why Matt didn’t tell me that he was ill. Sometimes I wonder if Matt was going to tell me the day he texted me. But because I didn’t return his text he probably believed that I didn’t care. I beat myself up a lot about it. However, there was really no way of me to know what he was going through when he was alive because he kept so much of his pain inside.

It was not a secret to people close to Matt that he generally kept to himself when he was stressed or burden with something. So we respected Matt’s decision when he chose to isolate himself from his friends and family. No one could have imagined or foreseen that our friend Matt was dying of cancer.

No one knows when their life will end so I advise people to live life as decent and as humble as possible. Treat people the way you would like to be treated. Pursue your goals no matter what obstacles you may face in life. Live your dream. When it comes to matters of the heart do not let petty things stop you from trying to make an effort to let the person know how you feel about him or her. When people love each other race, color, and age should be irrelevant.

Although, losing love ones are never easy I believe if we try to remember them in a positive way it may help to somehow ease the pain within time.

---------Please leave any feedback on our Facebook page—griefdigest

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yolanda Kinlock was raised in Brooklyn, NY. She has written several articles for Sooper Articles. Yolanda Kinlock is the author of the book Poems of Reality: The Experiences of Life. Her passion for writing developed when she was very young and continues to grow. She enjoys writing about social issues, the struggles of everyday life such as the pain, passion, fear, the controversy, and the trials and tribulations we all face in life. The author is currently working on her second book of stories and poetry.

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.